


The Incredible Bulk

by LupinTheLegend



Series: Chubby!Bruce Ficlets, Drabbles, and One-Shots [3]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Body Image, Eventual Romance, F/M, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Weight Gain, Weight Issues, chubby!Bruce Banner
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-18
Updated: 2017-11-18
Packaged: 2019-02-03 22:36:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12757551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LupinTheLegend/pseuds/LupinTheLegend
Summary: Bruce has been completely unaware of a massive amount of weight he's gained. It's mostly Tony's fault because he kept replacing Bruce's shirts. Or, at least, Tony feels like he can blame himself. He loves the physicist's weight gain over the past year a little too much, but what Bruce sees on the television, he can't unsee.Can Tony free Bruce's mind?Chubby!Bruce story.Don't like, don't read.





	The Incredible Bulk

**Author's Note:**

> It's been a while! I think the last time I posted something new was in July. Oops. That's an incredibly long, long time ago. 
> 
> This is a brand new piece that's never been posted before. I knew that I had to post something new because I keep putting up old work, which is great! I love my old work, but I hadn't done that in a super long time. I'm going to put up some old work, and write something else that's new, maybe a chapter for one of my series. But, I feel like new meets old today.
> 
> Anyway, this is not beta'd. I didn't even reread it. I'm sorry if it's terrible. Just prefacing it that way because I definitely wanted to post it now and not wait any longer. Otherwise, who knows if I'd ever put anything up!

Winter. Tony’s favorite season. It took him a while to stop being The Grinch around Christmas, but after he realized that he could hold a party and Bruce would be there… he got over it. The idea of giving presents to his best friend had sparked an interest in any holiday that involved presents: including Easter. Tony would get Bruce a giant Easter basket filled with candy and a couple of science magazines. To his surprise, Bruce always went for the candy first.

Of course, he couldn’t be surprised anymore.

It had been quite a few months since Tony had begun to have Vision switch out Bruce’s clothes with a size or two bigger. Or, at least, it was that way until Tony realized he had a ‘thing’ for seeing his friend in shirts that were two sizes too small. That ‘thing’ was not even a minor kink. It was more a gigantic, sinful kink.

It was a Sunday, and it was close to Christmas even though it wasn’t quite Thanksgiving yet. Everyone had been shopping around for presents for everyone else, and Tony was planning on throwing an Avengers-centered Thanksgiving. He thought it would be nice for everyone to see everyone for the holiday, especially because no one had anywhere else to be — except for Clint, but… he was Clint. What a weirdo. How does an assassin have a family?

Tony sat on the couch in the lounge, flipping through channels on the television, when he came across the news. Alright, well, nothing’s been blown up recently, so maybe I’ll keep it on this, he thought.

Br-rrrrrring! Br—rrrrrrrring!

“I’ll get it, sir. It may be Wanda with her gifts for everyone. She consistently loses her key!” Vision said, and strode to the door. Opening it, he laughed, “Did I not say that you should keep it around your neck?”

Wanda placed her bags of items on the floor, cupped Vision’s face with one hand, and kissed him. Tony was glad to see the two of them have a romance. It was nice to have romance at Stark Tower, even though most of the time it wasn’t his. When it was his romance, it was mostly women wanting to throw him out the window, including Pepper, who was now gone.

“Hello, Wanda. Nice to see you, Wanda. I love you, Wanda,” she said, teasing him. “And yes, you did. I just… haven’t gotten around to making it pretty yet.”

Even Tony had to smile at that. They were both happy. If only it was right for Tony to be in love with Bruce. But, it wasn’t. Bruce didn’t swing both ways the way Tony did.

“Does the key have to be pretty?” Bruce asked, shutting the light off in the hallway where he came. He appeared fresh-faced and happy, but there was an underlying tone in his voice that Tony could tell was Hulk material.

Wanda raised an eyebrow. “I would like it to be.”

Tony turned the television down so he could hear everyone. And then, he saw something on the screen that he wished he could unsee. Unable to help himself, he turned the volume back up, just as Wanda carried the presents into the living room. She plopped the bags down on the floor and they made that plastic crinkling sound against the thumping the paper ones made when hitting one another.

“Is that Bruce?” Wanda squinted, walking up to the screen until she was inches away from it. As soon as Bruce walked into the room, she snatched the remote from Tony and turned off the TV. “We don’t need to see that. Do we?”

“You do realize —“

Wanda grit her teeth and shot a glare at Tony. “Time for Christmas. Cheer instead of jeers, yeah?”

“But I was watching that! And, I think it’s important that we know what they’re saying,” Tony said, one of is arms around the sofa, and the other arm had a hand reaching out to get the remote from Wanda.

Wanda’s jaw twitched. “We already know what they’re going to say. You saw the photograph!”

“The big guy hasn’t come out when I didn’t know it, has he?” Bruce asked. He looked confused, and those large, puppy dog eyes sat were wide on his face, sparkling. “Should I see it?”

Tony looked behind him at where Bruce was standing. Vision was standing right behind him, looking at Wanda. They seemed to be communicating without speaking a word.

Vision shook his head. “No, you shouldn’t. It’s quite alright. They just have something new to pick —“

Wanda’s eyes furrowed, her mouth dropping open a bit. She tilted her head to the side, shaking it. Reaching forward, she set the remote on the coffee table, sat cross-legged on the floor, and began to unpack the bags filled with presents.

“It’s probably over now. Besides, I just wanted to know for damage control,” Tony said. He leaned over and turned the television back on by pressing the ‘on’ button with the remote still on the table.

“Damage con — Oh god… is that me?” Bruce walked around the sofa, and got closer to the screen than Wanda had gotten. His nose practically touched the glass. “Oh my god…. That’s the shirt I was wearing yesterday.”

“I believe this is when you turn off the television, sir,” Vision said. Tony knew that Vision could read lips, and that what they were saying on the screen wasn’t that pretty if Vision wanted it off.

But, Tony turned up the volume.

Bruce’s face melted as he closed his eyes. There were tears brimming his lashes. He tried to squeeze his eyes shut tighter because he didn’t want to see the screen, he didn’t want to see him on the screen. The scientist knew that, from that picture, he was at least seventy-five pounds over what he should be.

Seventy-five pounds.

At least.

He remembered the bullies at school. He remembered getting beaten up by them, and beaten up at home. He remembered sneaking bags of jerky in his room because he loved the protein, and he remembered eating entire pies on his bed… more than one at a time. He thought he was out of the place, and that the place was gone, and that the hell was in his head. But it was right here, in this room. It was with him now.

“This doesn’t look like The Incredible Hulk. This is The Incredible Bulk!” the person on television laughed, and his laugh cut through the television screen and shook Bruce. “I mean, look at that. Banner certainly has been comfortable!”

“Forget comfortable! He obviously has some sort of eating disorder. I mean, I’d hate myself, too, if I were a green monster. He obviously eats out of hate for himself. Why else would he pack on a hundred and fifty pounds? We have his weight, here. We found it on the SHIELD website. Four-oh-five. Can you believe that? That’s a little pathetic, don’t you think?”

“A little pathetic? Please… shouldn’t we be more concern —“

Wanda snatched the remote from the coffee table, turning off the television. She wrapped the remote in a plastic bag, tied it, and shoved it under a lounge chair. “Tony, let’s not have the television on anymore today.”

“Okay, maybe I made a bad judgement call,” Tony said, a little shocked. Okay, maybe he was more than a little shocked. He was very, very shocked. He was watching Bruce crumble before his eyes.

When Bruce opened his eyelids, Tony watched his perfect round face shudder. It was blood red from how much had rushed to his skin, and he… choked on his words before he spoke, “I should go. Now. I need… air.”

Tony noticed how green Bruce’s eyes had become, and he mentally kicked himself because he knew what he’d done was rather asinine. The physicist shouldn’t have found out that way. No one should have to find out that way, and as Bruce stumbled from the lounge, Tony didn’t know what to do. He wanted to kiss Bruce’s eyelids and tell him that it would be okay.

Wanda was looking at Tony as if she had an idea. “Then do that,” she said.

“Do what?” He was confused, and as Tony looked at her, he didn’t know what she meant by that.

It took until Wanda smiled at Vision, and then at Tony, that he knew. Even though he understood, and she could tell he did, she punctuated it with, “You love him, don’t you? Then make it right.”

Tony stood from his spot, trying to think about where Bruce would possibly be. He had an idea, but, it was probably wrong. If Bruce hadn’t of gotten out of there when he had, then he would have had the other guy come out. But, he did leave in time, which leaves one more place he could be: the lab. He always went there when he needed to calm down. But, just to make sure, he asked, “Saturday, where’s Bruce?”

“Bruce just left the lab,” the AI said, “He had wanted to know what was in the cafeteria for lunch. Is that of use?”

“Yes! Thank you,” Tony began to pick up his pace. He went from jogging through the halls to running. He ran down the stairs, through doors, past all of the people working. Finally, he turned on his heel and skidded to a halt. “Thank god.”

He walked, nonchalant, through the crowds of people, spinning around a few times as he tried to look for Bruce. There were a few places he could have sat down that weren’t quite the cafeteria. They were practically restaurants as they took your order and brought you your food. ‘They’ meaning robots. Bruce hated that, but desperate times.

That was when the crowd dissipated, and Tony thought he saw Bruce sitting at the window of one of the eateries. He lightly jogged over to the window, and then he tapped on the glass, grinning like a wild man when he knew it was the physicist.

He watched Bruce lift his head, and turn red when he realized it was Tony. The engineer came into the eatery, pulled out a chair, and sat across from him, “I love you.”

“Because I’m eating my weight in fries?” The physicist looked at him blankly, and then sighed. “I know! I know, okay. You don’t have to give me that look like you know better than me. They want to see me eat my feelings. Here.”

He took a handful of fries and stuffed them in his mouth, and said while he was chewing, “I’ll show them what that’s like.” He swallowed and took a swig of that German cola Tony knew he liked. Bruce picked up more fries, but Tony lowered his hand when it came to his mouth.

“Stop.” Tony looked straight into Bruce’s eyes, and cupped his face in his hands. “Don’t do this to yourself. Please. If you want to eat, eat, but don’t do it because of them. Besides, you are undeniably sexy, and you have no idea the feelings I have for you, but I’m going to show you right now.”

Tony kissed him over the table. He recognized how uncomfortable he was having the surface push at him in the stomach as he tried to kiss Bruce. Tried. Operative word. At first, the physicist was tense — a ball of nerves. And then… he loosened up.

And he began kissing Tony….

Everyone in the eatery stopped. Everyone.

When Tony pulled back, he kissed Bruce’s eyelids and said, “Everything will be okay.”

Bruce looked at him, smiling a soft smile. “It already is.”


End file.
